The Kids In The Old Mansion

Chapter Eight

PART ONE - IKKI'S BOYFRIEND

Ikki, Jinora, Lin, Mai, and Izumi were on lunch duty today.

"How come all of you have boyfriends?" Ikki pouted.

The older girls looked to one another.

"Because we like people who like us," Jinora eventually answered.

"How do you tell if a boy likes you?"

"If he does nice things for you or finds and excuse to be around you a lot, or if he tries to make you feel better all the time," Lin said. "Why?"

"Cause."

"You have a cruuushhh," Izumi sang.

Ikki blushed and continued cutting the strawberries for their fruit salad.

"Who?" Mai asked. "One of the twins?"

Ikki blushed again. "Tell anyone and I'll kill you. All of you."

"Which one?" Jinora asked.

"None of your buisness!" Just then, Wen and Zari walked in.

"Hello, girls," Zari said. "My brother and I wanted to see if you need any assistance?" Wen nodded as his brother spoke, smiling.

Ikki blushed. Her eyes kept glancing over to the boys, though her friends couldn't tell which one.

"We're fine, thank you," Izumi said, carrying plates to the table.

"Let us help, we insist." Wen took the glasses from Lin, and Zari took the plates from Izumi. As they were done setting up, Zari started signing to Wen.

Tell her.

I can't!

Come on, Wen!

She doesn't know sign language.

You know how to write. And we've seen her read.

Z, I can't, what if she doesn't like me back?

Don't worry, we'll work it out.

Wen took a deep breath and pulled out the pad of paper and pen that he always kept on him. He wrote a message to his crush, Ikki:

Hey. Can we talk in private?

Ikki smiled at him. "Sure."

"What's it say?" Jinora asked.

"Wen just wants to talk, I'll be fine." She took his hand and pulled him out the back door, the whole time Wen beamed and Zari watched with an amused expression.

"Okay." Lin pointed a serving spoon at him. "Spill."

Zari held up his hands. "Sworn to secrecy. Twin code." With that, he slipped away.

"And that confirms it, Ikki's got a boyfriend." Lin said, and the girls giggled.

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PART TWO - WEN & ZARI'S STORY.

Katara noticed Wen looked to his brother and made a few signs as everyone began filtering into the living room, talking and laughing as if they were a crowd of high-schoolers going into a cafeteria. Zari nodded and took a roast beef sandwich as everyone sat, and his twin followed suit. While everyone began talking, Zari cleared his throat. "Um? Excuse me?"

The other end of the table erupted in laughter at Sokka, who was imitating some lady at the store he'd met. "'Ooh, you're a nice strong boy, help me carry this loaf of bread! I can't handle it!"

"Guys," Zari started, but everyone kept laughing as Katara watched.

After a few more useless attempts, Katara stood. "Listen up, idiots!" She screamed. Everyone stopped and looked at her, damn near scared out of their skins.

She sat down, smoothing her skirt nicely. She said in her normal voice, "Zari was attemting to get our attention. Zari?" She turned to him.

"Uh, hi!" He said nervously. "Um, so, Wen and I decided we'd tell our story now."

"Okay okay okay okay," Opal said, "But first: Su and I have been guessing. We have some ideas to see how close we were before we hear it, if that's okay."

"Uh, yeah," Zari said.

"Okay," Su said, "One - Pirates. Two - Your dad's crazy and you're mom's dead. Three - You have a big sister."

Wen held up two fingers, but Zari said, "One out of three." His brother nudged him and signed something. "Yeah," the firebender said, but it's backwards." Wen signed again. "Okay, one in a half," he said.

"My turn! One - You broke into places regularly by the time you were eight. Two - You got seperated at one point and both fought hard getting out to find each other. Three - You're related to one of us, in particular, Iroh."

"Me?" Iroh asked.

"I have my reasons. Boys? How many right?"

"Two," Zari said. Wen nodded.

"Okayyyyy," Zuko said, "Zari, tell, please."

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Zari

Yes, Su, pirates. My parents ran a whole fleet.

Anyways, we were four when Dad died. Mom kinda went nuts. Hence, a half point on that. She kept acting like we weren't there, like, "MY HUSBAND IS DEAD LEAVE ME ALONE" if we ever tried to talk. Then she started hallucinating, thinking her mom was there and her dad and her husband. Eventually, we just slipped outta the picture.

Mom was the disowned child of the fire lord's brother, and we went there. But as there was no proof without our mom to back us up, well, we were thrown into an orphanage.

Soon enough, we were adopted by a lady named Kiyi, she asked for us to call her Aunt Kiyi. We were hanging out one day when Kiyi came home and asked if we were fugitives. We explained that we'd stolen what we needed to in order to survive, but had changed since we now had a home. She said she was sorry but she couldn't afford to be arrested for harbouring us.

We stowed away on a ship to Republic City, where everyone supposedly had a chance no matter the bending or race. Ha!

We were on the streets again, just for a month, when we met Asami. Every day she'd walk by, talk to us. She taught us how to read and write and do math and gave us money here and there.

Then she dissapeared for about a month. When she came back, she offered for us to stay here. And so we have decided that we would love to call this our new home.

About Iroh.

We have the same Grandma, you never met us but Grandma had a picture of you and your dad, my dad's brother. It was your dad holding you as a baby. Mom always wore it in a necklace. So, yeah, nice to meet you, Cousin.

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"Well damn. Nice to meet you, too," Iroh said, stunned.

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Hey! Sorry for the short chapter, I hit a brick wall and had to do a lot of thinking. Next one should be up soon! Again, credits for Wen and Zari (Along with about 1/2 of their story) goes to BeifongFirebender. Go read her stories, she's working on yet another and I love it!!

Have a great day, my fellow AtLA/LoK fans!!